Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

The roles of men are vastly different from the roles of women. Girls begin helping with domestic chores such as caring for younger siblings and fetching wood or water at a much earlier age than boys begin working. Girls are typically promised in marriage at an early age. Boys, mostly because they marry later in life, often initiate the proposal and may even raise a prospective wife during part of her childhood. There is no word for "love", except to describe a feeling men hold for relatives, but not for wives. Women are largely at the mercy of cruel husbands and many men beat, cut, or otherwise harm their wives. If a husband is overly cruel, the wife's brothers may take her from him and give her to another. Women dread the thought of being married to distant tribes because their...